Before Akademia was a school, and even before
Cimon enclosed its
precincts with a wall, it contained a sacred grove of olive trees
dedicated to
AthenaAthena , the goddess of wisdom , outside the city walls
of ancient
AthensAthens . The archaic name for the site was Hekademia,
which by classical times evolved into Akademia and was explained, at
least as early as the beginning of the 6th century BC, by linking it
to an Athenian hero , a legendary "
Akademos ". The site of Akademia
was sacred to
AthenaAthena and other immortals.

After a lapse during the early Roman occupation, Akademia was
refounded as a new institution of some outstanding Platonists of late
antiquity who called themselves "successors" (diadochoi , but of
Plato) and presented themselves as an uninterrupted tradition reaching
back to Plato. However, there cannot have actually been any
geographical, institutional, economic or personal continuity with the
original
AcademyAcademy in the new organizational entity.

The last "Greek" philosophers of the revived Akademia in the 6th
century were drawn from various parts of the
HellenisticHellenistic cultural
world and suggest the broad syncretism of the common culture (see
koine ): Five of the seven Akademia philosophers mentioned by Agathias
were Syriac in their cultural origin: Hermias and Diogenes (both from
Phoenicia), Isidorus of Gaza,
Damascius of Syria,
Iamblichus of
Coele-Syria and perhaps even
Simplicius of Cilicia .

The emperor Justinian closed the school in AD 529, a date that is
often cited as the end of Antiquity . According to the sole witness,
the historian
Agathias , its remaining members looked for protection
under the rule of Sassanid king Khosrau I in his capital at Ctesiphon
, carrying with them precious scrolls of literature and philosophy,
and to a lesser degree of science. After a peace treaty between the
Persian and the Byzantine empire in 532 guaranteed their personal
security (an early document in the history of freedom of religion ),
some members found sanctuary in the pagan stronghold of
Harran , near
Edessa . One of the last leading figures of this group was Simplicius,
a pupil of Damascius, the last head of the Athenian school.

It has been speculated that Akademia did not altogether disappear.
After his exile, Simplicius (and perhaps some others), may have
travelled to
Harran , near Edessa . From there, the students of an
Academy-in-exile could have survived into the 9th century, long enough
to facilitate the Arabic revival of the Neoplatonist commentary
tradition in
BaghdadBaghdad .

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2015)

RENAISSANCE ACADEMIES IN ITALY

With the Neoplatonist revival that accompanied the revival of
humanist studies , accademia took on newly vivid connotations.

15TH CENTURY ACCADEMIE

During the
Florentine Renaissance , Cosimo de\'
Medici took a
personal interest in the new
Platonic Academy that he determined to
re-establish in 1439, centered on the marvellous promise shown by the
young
Marsilio Ficino . Cosimo had been inspired by the arrival at the
otherwise ineffective
Council of FlorenceCouncil of Florence of
Gemistos Plethon , who
seemed a dazzling figure to the Florentine intellectuals. In 1462
Cosimo gave Ficino a villa at
Careggi for the Academy's use, situated
where Cosimo could see it from his own villa, and drop by for visits.
The academy remained a wholly informal group, but one which had a
great influence on Renaissance Neo-Platonism . Main article: Roman
academies

In Rome, after unity was restored following the
Western Schism ,
humanist circles, cultivating philosophy and searching out and sharing
ancient texts tended to gather where there was access to a library.
The
Vatican Library was not coordinated until 1475 and was never
catalogued or widely accessible: not all popes looked with
satisfaction at gatherings of unsupervised intellectuals. At the head
of this movement for renewal in Rome was
Cardinal Bessarion , whose
house from the mid-century was the centre of a flourishing academy of
Neoplatonic philosophy and a varied intellectual culture. His valuable
Greek as well as Latin library (eventually bequeathed to the city of
VeniceVenice after he withdrew from Rome) was at the disposal of the
academicians. Bessarion, in the latter years of his life, retired from
Rome to
Ravenna , but he left behind him ardent adherents of the
classic philosophy.

The next generation of humanists were bolder admirers of pagan
culture, especially in the highly personal academy of Pomponius Leto ,
the natural son of a nobleman of the
Sanseverino family, born in
CalabriaCalabria but known by his academic name, who devoted his energies to
the enthusiastic study of classical antiquity, and attracted a great
number of disciples and admirers. He was a worshipper not merely of
the literary and artistic form, but also of the ideas and spirit of
classic paganism, which made him appear a condemner of Christianity
and an enemy of the Church. In his academy every member assumed a
classical name. Its principal members were humanists, like Bessarion's
protégé
Giovanni Antonio Campani (Campanus),
Bartolomeo Platina ,
the papal librarian, and
Filippo Buonaccorsi , and young visitors who
received polish in the academic circle, like Publio Fausto Andrelini
of
BolognaBologna who took the
New Learning to the
University of Paris , to
the discomfiture of his friend
ErasmusErasmus . In their self-confidence,
these first intellectual neopagans compromised themselves politically,
at a time when Rome was full of conspiracies fomented by the Roman
barons and the neighbouring princes: Paul II (1464–71) caused
Pomponio and the leaders of the academy to be arrested on charges of
irreligion, immorality, and conspiracy against the
PopePope . The
prisoners begged so earnestly for mercy, and with such protestations
of repentance, that they were pardoned. The Letonian academy, however,
collapsed.

The 16th century saw at Rome a great increase of literary and
aesthetic academies, more or less inspired by the Renaissance, all of
which assumed, as was the fashion, odd and fantastic names. We learn
from various sources the names of many such institutes; as a rule,
they soon perished and left no trace. In the 1520s came the Accademia
degl\' Intronati , for the encouragement of theatrical
representations. There were also the
AcademyAcademy of the "Vignaiuoli ", or
"Vinegrowers " (1530), and the Accademia della
Virtù (1538), founded
by
Claudio Tolomei under the patronage of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici
. These were followed by a new academy in the "Orti " or Farnese
gardens. There were also the academies of the "Intrepidi " (1560), the
"Animosi " (1576), and the "
Illuminati " (1598); this last, founded by
the Marchesa Isabella Aldobrandini Pallavicino . Towards the middle of
the 16th century there were also the
AcademyAcademy of the "Notti Vaticane ",
or "Vatican Nights ", founded by St .
Charles Borromeo ; an "Accademia
di Diritto civile e canonico", and another of the university scholars
and students of philosophy (Accademia Eustachiana ). As a rule these
academies, all very much alike, were merely circles of friends or
clients gathered around a learned man or wealthy patron, and were
dedicated to literary pastimes rather than methodical study. They
fitted in, nevertheless, with the general situation and were in their
own way one element of the historical development. Despite their
empirical and fugitive character, they helped to keep up the general
esteem for literary and other studies. Cardinals, prelates, and the
clergy in general were most favourable to this movement, and assisted
it by patronage and collaboration.

In Florence, the
Medici again took the lead in establishing the
Accademia e Compagnia delle Arti del Disegno in 1563, the first of the
more formally organised art academies that gradually displaced the
medieval artists' guilds , usually known as the
Guild of
SaintSaint Luke ,
as the bodies responsible for training and often regulating artists, a
change with great implications for the development of art, leading to
the styles known as
Academic artAcademic art . The private Accademia degli
Incamminati set up later in the century in
BolognaBologna by the Carracci
brothers was also extremely influential, and with the Accademia di San
Luca of Rome (founded 1593) helped to confirm the use of the term for
these institutions.

17TH- AND 18TH-CENTURY ACADEMIES IN EUROPE

Gradually academies began to specialize on particular topics (arts,
language, sciences) and began to be founded and funded by the kings
and other sovereigns (few republics had an academy). And, mainly,
since 17th century academies spread throughout Europe.

LITERARY-PHILOSOPHICAL ACADEMIES

In the 17th century the tradition of literary-philosophical
academies, as circles of friends gathering around learned patrons, was
continued in Italy; the "Umoristi " (1611), the "Fantastici (1625),
and the "Ordinati ", founded by Cardinal Dati and
Giulio Strozzi .
About 1700 were founded the academies of the "Infecondi ", the
"Occulti ", the "Deboli ", the "Aborigini ", the "Immobili ", the
"Accademia Esquilina ", and others. During the 18th century many
Italian cities established similar philosophical and scientific
academies. In the first half of the 19th century some of these became
the national academies of pre-unitarian states: the
AcademyAcademy of Accesi
became the Panomitan
AcademyAcademy of Buon Gusto (
TrentoTrento ); the
AcademyAcademy of
Timidi became the
Royal Academy of
Mantua ; the Accademia dei
Ricovrati became the
Galileiana Academy of Arts and Science (
Padova );
the
AcademyAcademy of Dissonanti became the
Royal Academy of
ModenaModena and the
AcademyAcademy of Oscuri became the
Royal Academy of
Lucca .

A fundamental feature of academic discipline in the artistic
academies was regular practice in making accurate drawings from
antiquities, or from casts of antiquities, on the one hand, and on the
other, in deriving inspiration from the other fount, the human form.
Students assembled in sessions drawing the draped and undraped human
form , and such drawings, which survive in the tens of thousands from
the 17th through the 19th century, are termed ACADéMIES in French.

Similar institutions were often established for other arts: Rome had
the Accademia di Santa Cecilia for music from 1585; Paris had the
Académie Royale de Musique from 1669 and the Académie Royale
d\'Architecture from 1671.

The
Accademia degli Infiammati of
Padova and the Accademia degli
Umidi, soon renamed the
Accademia Fiorentina , of
FlorenceFlorence were both
founded in 1540, and were both initially concerned with the proper
basis for literary use of the volgare, or vernacular language of
Italy, which would later become the
Italian languageItalian language . In 1582 five
Florentine literati gathered and founded the
Accademia della CruscaAccademia della Crusca to
demonstrate and conserve the beauty of the Florentine vernacular
tongue, modelled upon the authors of the Trecento. The main instrument
to do so was the Vocabolario degli accademici della Crusca. The Crusca
long remained a private institution, criticizing and opposing the
official Accademia Fiorentina.

The first institution inspired by the Crusca was the Fruitbearing
Society for German language, which existed from 1617 to 1680.

The Crusca inspired Richelieu to found in 1634 the analogous
Académie française with the task of acting as an official authority
on the
French languageFrench language , charged with publishing the official
dictionary of that language. The following year the Académie received
letters patent from the king Louis XIII as the only recognized academy
for French language.

In its turn the state established Académie was the model for the
Real Academia Española (founded in 1713) and the Swedish Academy
(1786), which are the ruling bodies of their respective languages and
editors of major dictionaries. It also was the model for the Russian
AcademyAcademy , founded in 1783, which afterwards merged into the Russian
AcademyAcademy of Sciences.

After the short-lived
Academia Secretorum Naturae of Naples, the
first academy exclusively devoted to sciences was the Accademia dei
Lincei founded in 1603 in Rome, particularly focused on natural
sciences. In 1657 some students of
GalileoGalileo founded the Accademia del
Cimento (
AcademyAcademy of Experiment) in
FlorenceFlorence , focused on physics and
astronomy. The foundation of
AcademyAcademy was funded by Prince Leopoldo and
Grand Duke Ferdinando II de\'
Medici . This academy lasted after few
decades.

In 1652 was founded the Academia Naturae Curiosorum by four
physicians. In 1677, Leopold I , emperor of the
Holy Roman EmpireHoly Roman Empire ,
recognised the society and in 1687 he gave it the epithet Leopoldina,
with which is internationally famous. , p. 7–8; So, it became the
academy of sciences for the whole
Holy Roman EmpireHoly Roman Empire .

On 28 November 1660, a group of scientists from and influenced by the
Invisible
CollegeCollege (gathering approximately since 1645) met at Gresham
CollegeCollege and announced the formation of a "
CollegeCollege for the Promoting of
Physico-Mathematical Experimental Learning", which would meet weekly
to discuss science and run experiments. In 1662 Charles II of England
signed a
Royal Charter which created the "
Royal Society of London",
then "
Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural
Knowledge".

In 1666 Colbert gathered a small group of scholars to found a
scientific society in Paris. The first 30 years of the Academy's
existence were relatively informal, since no statutes had as yet been
laid down for the institution. In contrast to
Royal Society , the
AcademyAcademy was founded as an organ of government. In 1699,
Louis XIV gave
the
AcademyAcademy its first rules and named it Académie royale des sciences
.

This kind of academy lost importance after the university reform
begun with the foundation of the
University of Berlin , when
universities were provided with laboratories and clinics, and were
charged with doing experimental research.

MILITARY ACADEMIES

At first such institutions only trained the
ArtilleryArtillery and Military
Engineering officiers, like the Aula da Artilharia (founded in 1641)
and the Aula de Fortificação (1647) in Lisbon, the Real Accademia di
Savoia in
Turin (opened in 1678), the Imperial
ArtilleryArtillery Military
AcademyAcademy of
SaintSaint Petersburg (1698), the Royal Military Academy
Woolwich (1741), the Real Colegio de Artilleria in Segovia (1764).

Starting at the end of the 16th century in the Holy Roman Empire,
France, Poland and Denmark, many Knight academies were established to
prepare the aristocratic youth for state and military service. Many of
them lately turned into gymnasiums , but some of them were transformed
into true military academies.

The
École Militaire was founded by
Louis XV of France in 1750 with
the aim of creating an academic college for cadet officers from poor
families. The construction began in 1752, but the school did not open
until 1760.

The modern
AcademyAcademy of
AthensAthens , next to the
UniversityUniversity of Athens
and the National Library forming 'the Trilogy', designed by
Schinkel\'s Danish pupil Theofil Hansen , 1885, in Greek Ionic ,
academically correct even to the polychrome sculpture.

National academies are bodies for scientists, artists or writers that
are usually state-funded and often are given the role of controlling
much of the state funding for research into their areas, or other
forms of funding. Some use different terms in their name - the British
Royal Society for example. The membership typically comprises
distinguished individuals in the relevant field, who may be elected by
the other members, or appointed by the government. They are
essentially not schools or colleges, though some may operate teaching
arms. The
Académie Française was the most influential pattern for
these.

Because of the tradition of intellectual brilliance associated with
this institution, many groups have chosen to use the word "academy" in
their name, especially specialized tertiary educational institutions.
In the early 19th century "academy" took the connotations that
"gymnasium " was acquiring in German-speaking lands, of school that
was less advanced than a college (for which it might prepare students)
but considerably more than elementary. Early American examples are the
prestigious preparatory schools of
Phillips Andover Academy , Phillips
Exeter
AcademyAcademy and
Deerfield Academy . In England, "academy" had a
specialized meaning for schools, but the
Edinburgh Academy was more
like the American examples.
AcademyAcademy was also used very loosely for
various commercial training schools for dancing and the like.

Mozart organized public subscription performances of his music in
Vienna in the 1780s and 1790s, he called the concerts "academies".
This usage in musical terms survives in the concert orchestra Academy
of St Martin in the Fields and in the
Brixton Academy , a concert hall
in Brixton, South London.

Academies proliferated in the 20th century until even a three-week
series of lectures and discussions would be termed an "academy". In
addition, the generic term "the academy" is sometimes used to refer to
all of academia, which is sometimes considered a global successor to
the
AcademyAcademy of
AthensAthens .

FRENCH REGIONAL ACADEMIES OVERSEEING EDUCATION

A map outlining the academies overseeing education in France.

In France, regional academic councils called academies are
responsible for supervising all aspects of education in their region.
The academy regions are similar to, but not identical to, the standard
French administrative regions. the rector of each academy is a
revocable nominee of the Ministry of Education. These academies' main
responsibility is overseeing primary and secondary education, but
public universities are in some respects also answerable to the
academy for their region. However, French private universities are
independent of the state and therefore independent of the regional
academies.

From the mid-seventeenth to the 19th centuries, educational
institutions in
EnglandEngland run by nonconformist groups that did not agree
with the Church of
EnglandEngland teachings were collectively known as "the
dissenting academies ". As a place at an English public school or
university generally required conformity to the Church of England,
these institutions provided an alternative for those with different
religious views and formed a significant part of England’s
educational system .

University College LondonUniversity College London (UCL) was founded in 1826 as the first
publicly funded English university to admit anyone regardless of
religious adherence; and the
Test and Corporation Acts , which had
imposed a wide range of restrictions on citizens who were not in
conformity to the Church of England, were abolished shortly
afterwards, by the Catholic Relief Act of 1829.

In 2000, a form of "independent state schools", called "academies ",
were introduced in
EnglandEngland . They have been compared to US charter
schools . They are directly funded from central government rather
than through local councils, and are partly privately sponsored. Often
the sponsors are from business, but some are sponsored by universities
and charities. These schools have greater autonomy than schools run by
the local councils. They are usually a type of secondary school, but
some are "all through" schools with an integral primary school. Some
of the early ones were briefly known as "city academies"—the first
such school opening on 10 September 2002 at the Business Academy
Bexley .

The Queen's Speech, which followed the 2010 general election ,
included proposals for a bill to allow the Secretary of State for
Education to approve schools, both Primary and Secondary, that have
been graded "outstanding" by
Ofsted , to become academies. This will
be through a simplified streamlined process which will not require the
sponsors to provide capital funding.

In 2012, the UK government began forcing some schools which had been
graded satisfactory or lower into becoming academies, unilaterally
removing existing governing bodies and head teachers in some cases. An
example was Downhills Primary School in Haringey, where the head
teacher refused to turn the school into an academy. OFSTED were called
in to assess the school, failed it, and both the head and the
governing body were removed and replaced with a Government-appointed
board despite opposition from the school and parents.